Friday, August 14, 2009

Marisa Roffman at Zap2It has a nice Q&A with Hart Hanson and Stephen Nathan about Season 4 and Season 5, fans, and more. Lots of spoilers, beware of the link and comments on this post!

Some non-spoiler bits from the post:

The season finale certainly got a passionate reaction.Hart Hanson: Mixed reviews, I think is what people say.

Were you expecting that kind of response? Or were you thinking more fans would immediately fall in love with it?HH: What did I expect? What I knew was that [my goal was to make sure] our really loyal fans would like it. And I thought, well, the rest of the [casual viewers] might not like it. But I knew that the people who watched every show would definitely like it more than the people who didn't. But I think I got it wrong. I thought two-thirds of people would be happy and one-third would hate it. And I think it's the other way around. I think about one-third loved it and two-thirds were mad. So that wasn't the best. I didn't guess well.

And of course you have a Twitter account, which means you had immediate access to fan reaction.HH: Oh boy! And people are not shy [with comments like], "You suck!" They get mad. I get in trouble when I say things like this, but it means they are invested in the show. If there was silence and people went away, that would be a disaster. Hollering at me, and then tuning into the next show to see if I make up for it, that's not a disaster. Although every once in a while you go, hey, come on, it's hard to make a TV show! Give me a break! But you can't be self-pitying. There are no excuses in TV.

I know at Comic-Con, you said the loyal fans liked the finale. I was sitting by fans that weren't in love with it, but really feel they are loyal to the show. Do you think it's fair to say that some of the really loyal fans just didn't like the finale?HH: Oh my God, yes! I don't mean to suggest loving the season finale is proof that you are a loyal fan. You are more likely to love the finale if you are a loyal fan, that's all. I wouldn't want people saying, he thinks I'm not a loyal fan because I didn't like [the finale]. Oh, no. In fact, the more loyal fan you are, maybe the more passionate you are because you either loved it or hated it.

The bottom line is the loyal fans are also more likely to come back to see what happens next, even if they hated the finale.HH: I hope so. And I really hope [they do]. I always thought of the season finale and the season opener as kind of linked, obviously, because it's a cliffhanger. So what happens next, we'll find out [in the opener]. I think, I hope, that a lot of people who went, I don't like that season finale, will like it by the end of the season opener. If they don't, then oh my God, we'll try and make it up to them.

Do you have any regrets about airing the episode as a season finale instead of a midseason episode?HH: I'm so torn. Every once in a while, I go [frustrated sigh], we should have done it midseason. [I should have just had] the love letter to the loyal fans midseason, and done something more wide reaching for the season finale. But then I thought, man, these fans, they follow us anywhere. And it's kind of like I wanted those fans to see all the little tricks, looks and echoes, and [I thought] they'll get that these are the personalities that are just underneath the surface of all these people. And they'll see, this is what it would look like if Bones and Booth were together. If Brennan and Booth were together, married, this is what it would look like... do you like that? So I go back and forth [on if it should have been the finale].

When we talked last year and you brought up the alternate reality episode, you mentioned Goodman might be a part of it. So on behalf of all his fans, what happened there?HH: There are so many boring answers to these questions. He is a busy guy. Jonathan [Adams (Goodman)] works all the time. He's expensive. And we have to go, all right, what do we give up if Jonathan's available. That [alternate reality] story was one that we might have pulled him in for. He was literally one of my favorite actors I've ever worked with. I was nuts about Jonathan. I put a lot of my attitudes and things into his [character's] mouth. And I put a lot of my attitudes into Cam's mouth now. So one of these days it'll work out. The same with Zack, with Eric [Millegan]. He's moving to New York in two weeks, which makes it tougher [to bring him back].